Touch and Go
by Ifwecansparkle
Summary: Some truths are bigger than others, and it's really no surprise this one slipped through the cracks until now. Ned has more than one reason for not wanting to touch people. Autistic!Ned.


**It took me a year to finish this fic (because I misplaced it), but it's finally finished and I can stop feeling guilty for promising it to people. I know a lot of people really strongly headcanon Ned as autistic, so I hope I did this justice.**

"I don't think I want to touch you," Ned said one evening, his shrink-wrapped arm still draped over Chuck's waist in direct defiance of his words. She stiffened under his touch and craned her neck to look at him.

"What?"

"I mean, of course I want to touch you, that's kind of the crux of our relationship, if we have a crux. And I couldn't actually touch you, even if I wanted to, which of course I do. I just-don't want to touch you right now," he bit at his lip, waiting for Chuck's reaction. She quirked a half smile.

"You don't have to touch me," she said, patting the plastic on his arm and wriggling out of his grasp. "And you don't have to want to touch me. I mean, I love when you do, and I love this," she gestured around at their makeshift setup, "but you don't have to want it all the time, even if you can't."

"Really?" Ned blinked at her.

"Really," she said, turning onto her back. "But just so I'm clear, you're okay, right?"

Ned pulled his arm free and turned on his back as well. "Of course I'm okay, why wouldn't I be okay?"

"I don't know," Chuck admitted. "But sometimes you're not very good at sharing that kind of thing, so I'm taking initiative. I didn't do that enough when I had the chance with my aunts, and maybe I could have made them feel a little better if I had."

"I'm...fine," Ned insisted, staring up at the ceiling so hard that if his power was laser vision he would have been staring up at the stars, instead. "Chuck," he restarted after a moment.

"Yes?"

"I don't think I'm fine."

Chuck flipped over so that she was lying on her stomach, propped up on her elbows. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"No," Ned said, exploring the smooth texture of the bed sheet with nervous fingers.

"No?"

"I don't want to talk to you because every noise in this room sounds like its coming through a megaphone so loud that I'm afraid it's going to blow me away like it's actually an Acme cartoon megaphone, but I think maybe not talking about it is worse than talking about it, so I guess if I blow away, at least you'll know why."

"You don't have go blow away, and if you do, I'll find some way to catch you, I promise."

"Really?"

"I promised, didn't I?"

The sigh Ned released felt as though it rattled the windows, but he steeled himself and spoke again.

"You know how we're being honest with each other, but really, some truths are bigger than others, and when you can wake the dead, and you killed your girlfriend's dad accidentally when you were a kid, other truths kind of slip through the cracks, and truths that might originally seem big become small in retrospect?"

"I think I do," Chuck said. "Like how Emerson never told you about Lila because Penny was much bigger news?"

"Something like that, except not really at all like that."

"Then what is it like?"

"It's kind of like my undeading power, because it's inside of me, and it kind of impeded my ability to touch people sometimes, and sometimes it helps me do useful things like bake delicious pies out of rotten fruit and solve murders by talking to the victims, and sometimes it makes me do less useful things like giving angry hunting trophies a second chance on life, and that one time I turned my mother's death into a two-for-one sale with your father as the free item. Only in this case the useful things are more like remembering every pie recipe I've ever read, and the unuseful things are more like having panic attacks in department stores because there are too many choices and I don't know the difference between a button-up and a button-down."

"Do you want me to go shopping with you next time?"

"Yes, but that's kind of beside the point."

"Then what's the point?"

"The point. Um," he wasn't sure he remembered. He wasn't sure he wanted to open his mouth again because his voice was echoing inside his skull and this seemed counterproductive to making it stop.

"Do you want me to go?" Chuck asked, starting to move away. "We can talk about this tomorrow. I can go back to my apartment, and we can talk about it later. I understand having secrets, I'm not going to force you to share yours. I should go."

"No! No, I don't want you to go," he glanced at Chuck and then went back to staring at the ceiling. "If you go now, you'll think I'm an international smuggler, or the type of person who takes phone calls in movie theaters."

"You go to the movies?"

"I've...been."

"So we've ruled out smuggling and bad moviegoer. Can I have another clue?"

"I don't really think this is a clue type scenario, and I doubt you'll be able to guess, anyways. It's kind of unbelievable."

"More unbelievable than 'hi, I can wake the dead, and that's why we're talking right now?'"

"I guess it depends on your definition of unbelievable."

"Do you want to define it for me?"

"Emerson said I talked too much, when I told him."

Chuck offered a half strangled chuckle. "Emerson says a lot of things, it doesn't make them true. He can have a surprisingly low threshold for the unbelievable, considering what he does for a living."

Emerson, Ned did not mention, had done some research he would later deny with a gun to his head, and had apologized with a peace offering of the softest pair of socks Ned had ever worn. He wriggled his toes under the sheet and wished that he was wearing them now. They were familiar and comforting and grounding, like baking and the way Chuck's hair looked in the light.

"I think Emerson's opinions are reflective of most people's, honestly. That's why I tend to keep this particular secret to myself."

"Am I most people?" Chuck questioned, just a touch of slyness in her voice.

"Not necessarily. But once bitten, twice shy, as they say. Isn't that what they say?"

"That's it. But if you're twice shy, you're never going to heal from the bite."

"Then maybe I'm not supposed to heal. Maybe I'm supposed to be broken, or maybe I can't break, and that's the problem. Maybe I can't even feel the bites and I deserve what I get. Maybe I'm just meant to be made of secrets. Maybe that's who I am and maybe-"

The heating unit chose that exact moment to kick on with a rattle and a small voice whispered into Ned's ear that the rattle and the hum was the final straw. He shuddered and curled into himself. Chuck dove out of bed, turned off the heat, and crawled back beside him, just inches-and a layer of plastic-away from him. Ned uncurled slowly.

"This is embarrassing," he mumbled.

"No, no. It's not embarrassing. And you do get to heal. It's not fair if you have to do all the healing and don't get any for yourself. I just want to help you. And it that means going back to my apartment for tonight, that's okay." Chuck sat up and started to slide off the bed again.

"Wait," Ned said before she could stand. He swallowed hard. "Okay. A clue."

"If you want," she reminded him.

"I know," he said, pulling himself into a sitting position and drawing his knees up to his chest protectively. "A," he said after a long moment.

"A what?"

"That's it. I mean, it starts with an 'A.' There are other letters involved, too."

Chuck's eyebrows crept briefly into the direction of her hairline, but they returned to their usual spots almost instantly. "Okay," she said with a small nod.

"Do you need another clue?" Ned questioned after a moment of nervous hesitation.

"I don't think I do," Chuck said.

Ned felt his breath catch in his throat, and he cast a nervous glance somewhere around the bridge of her nose. "Okay," he said. "Then you can go now, if you want."

"Do you want me to go?" Chuck questioned.

"No," Ned confessed after yet another long moment of contemplative terror.

"Then I don't want to go either," she said with a slight smile, lying down again. Ned felt himself relax just a twinge for the first time that evening.

"Okay," he said, half smiling with relief. "But-" he hesitated.

"Yes?"

"I still can't touch you right now."

"That's okay," she said. "I've got all the time in the world."

All things considered, he supposed that she did.


End file.
